The Literati and the Illuminati

Author:

Taylor Jordan1

Affiliation:

1. Smith College

Abstract

Augustin Barruel’s Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism incited the famous “Illuminati scare” in the United States from 1798 through 1800. Barruel argued that a shadowy Freemason group known as the Illuminati had provoked the French Revolution. Americans in the late 1790s inferred that this group was infiltrating the United States. Scholars often imagine that this scare was an instance of mass hysteria triggered by the intensity of American politics at this moment. But in fact, Americans’ response to Barruel was measured, careful, and guided by the era’s prevailing epistemological standards. Atlantic knowledge networks repeatedly validated (or failed to persuasively rebut) the content of the Memoirs, allowing American intellectuals such as Jedidiah Morse and Timothy Dwight to spread the conspiracy theory with the conviction of “authority.” Morse was particularly significant as a mediator between these networks and American audiences. By engaging with literary reviews, the correspondence of academics, and the publications of intellectuals, Morse had good reason to accept Barruel’s account. Indeed, the evidence that Morse and his allies marshalled in favor of Barruel was arguably stronger than that which was available to their critics. In this light, the Illuminati “scare” was not an irrational panic, but rather a reasonable response to the evidence available to Americans during the late 1790s. By re-examining this story through the lens of print history, transatlantic networks, and early modern processes of knowledge production, scholars can better understand the borders and limitations of early modern epistemologies, as well as the nature of early conspiracy theories.

Publisher

Consortium Erudit

Subject

General Earth and Planetary Sciences,General Environmental Science

Reference111 articles.

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2. Branson, Susan. These Fiery Frenchified Dames: Women and Political Culture in Early National Philadelphia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

3. Bruckner, Martin. The Geographic Revolution in Early America: Maps, Literacy, & National Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

4. Buel Jr., Richard. Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972.

5. Butterfield, Kevin. The Making of Tocqueville’s America: Law and Association in the Early United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.

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